Footnotes to a Conversation, July 29, 2024

“Everything has a small beginning.” — Cicero

Growing in a New Country

In London, UK, an extensive network of Brazilian home bakers is meeting Brazilian immigrants’ desire for a taste of home. “Ordering from Geni felt like sending a wish list to Santa Claus. She asked me what I wanted: how big, what type of dough, what kind of filling. My request was indulgent – something with both brigadeiro and doce de leite – but Geni agreed to turn it into a reality … The result was better than I could have imagined.”

The immigrant women are also establishing themselves. One of the bakers explained that for many immigrant women, baking is “a way for them to grow in a new country, despite the language and cultural barriers. You don’t need to do a job interview or a language test to start doing it. It’s also, she says, a ‘way to express that which is your culture, which is your country.’” I suspect the same holds true for the Canadian farmers’ market vendors selling everything from salsa and tacos to baba ghanoush and Syrian lemonade. [Vittles]

Behaving Badly

We see it in the news – tourists getting way too close to wild animals, posing in the nude in a sacred site, or hen/stag parties indulging publicly in drunk and disorderly behaviour. Why does it happen? Here are a few possibilities:

"I do think there's this element of anonymity that people feel when they travel that makes them act in ways that they might not otherwise, but then I think also some of it has to do with the way that… corporations and governments package tourism to people … That's why I'm not a huge fan of mass tourism … The whole goal is to just get people in a place where they can over-drink, overeat, over-consume. It's like setting them up for failure."

“While it has become easier for more people to travel, not everyone is emotionally ready for the impact of being outside of their comfort zone, which could explain the uptick in antisocial behaviour.”

"I think so many people travel and they're thinking about how it's going to be an experience for them, but they don't think about how their [actions are] impacting the place that they're in, because they just don't have the knowledge."

“The remedy for this kind of behaviour ultimately comes down to a shift in mindset – one that encourages people to realise that travel is ultimately a privilege, that visiting a place means you are a guest in someone else's home and that you should interact with people of different backgrounds in a thoughtful and respectful way.” [BBC]

Canada’s Chocolate Town

“If you like chocolate, don’t miss a visit to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, dubbed Canada’s Chocolate Town,” say Robin and Arlene Karpan. “For over 150 years the town of St. Stephen has been the headquarters of the largest family-owned and operated chocolate-making company in Canada – Ganong. It all started back in 1873 when brothers James and Gilbert Ganong settled in St. Stephen on the St. Croix River near the Bay of Fundy in southwestern New Brunswick, just a stone’s throw away from Maine across the river. They first operated a grocery store and introduced candy as one of the offerings. When demand for their confections grew, they turned their attention to making candy on a much larger scale. So began the Ganong legacy.” [Photo Journeys]

Secrets in the Snack Aisle

“If you teleported me to a foreign city for a day and gave me a choice between a trip to the supermarket or a museum, I’d almost always choose the supermarket …  because a grocery store is a museum in its own right: a little slice of local life.” I’m inclined to agree as I love exploring supermarket aisles wherever I happen to be. You’ll find prawn cocktail crisps in the UK but nowhere else. If you want to buy a bag of lasagna flavour chips, you must head for Thailand. The author says there’s a reason why you’ll find eggs on the shelf in the UK and in the refrigerator in North America, but why do French supermarkets stock such an abundance of unrefrigerated, ultra high temperature milk? [The Guardian]

Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.

If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West, an online publication encouraging environmental initiatives in Western Canada, and Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.